


woke up new

by betonprosa



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betonprosa/pseuds/betonprosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan Nolan, post "Wizards at War."</p>
            </blockquote>





	woke up new

_Who, if I cried, would hear me, of the angelic_  
orders? or even supposing that one should suddenly  
carry me to his heart — I should perish under the pressure  
of his stronger nature.  
  
Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind full  
of cosmic space invades our frightened faces.  
  
Don't you know yet _? Fling out of your arms the_  
emptiness into the spaces we breathe -perhaps the birds  
will feel the expanded air in their more ferven flight.  
  
\--Rainer Maria Rilke, excerpted from the Duino Elegies  


 

 

 

 

 

 

"You--Ronan--I can't even really," and Nita grimaces in frustration. "I mean--"

She reaches down, fingers gently tracing the whorl of his name in the Speech, waiting as a subroutine at the edge of the transport spell she'd helped Kit to construct in the snow-melt mush of the Callahans' backyard. _Ronan Harris Nolan, Jr, born_ \--it begins, his eyes following the movement of her hand-- _former_ \-- and then the characters knot themselves into confusion. _Status: pending, former avatar/host/embodiment of--_

"Couldn't let you Yankee Doodles get off thinking you've got exclusive rights to saving the world, now, could I?" Smirking, he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets.

"Go home, Irish," she laughs, some of the exhaustion lifting from her face, and cuffs him lightly on the shoulder.

"Sure and haven't I been enough of a target? Go on--" He jerks his head towards Kit, kneeling in the mud for a final check of the transport coordinates. "Shower him with some _affections_ , eh?"

"I'll take that-- _suggestion_ \--into due consideration." Her smile slips, and she reaches out again, lightly resting her fingers against his elbow. "Look, back there, I--"

"Nita--" he interrupts, the words a low rumble at the back of his throat. "Thanks," and in the space of her silence, he steps into the circle left open within the spell diagram.

"Go," she says finally, in the Speech, and the wizardry springs up into life.

-

Morning, the emptiness of his own skin shivering around him, and the acidic tang of orange juice; soggy mouthfuls of cornflakes; the bus window, cool against his forehead; and skies sullen with swollen clouds.

One morning swallows up the next, and still _pending_ , the tangle of his name reads, and _awaiting assignment_ , the Knowledge tells him.

-

"What's it like, then," and Rachel O'Faolain slides onto the booth bench opposite him, a pint glass of Coke in either hand. "I've been bullying the Knowledge for _days_ , and it's got nothing besides some daft blabber about an incoming update, and I've heard Shaun, he's no idea what to do with you--"

She was some sort of specialist--the wizardly equivalent of Human Resources, she'd said when she'd rung and asked if they could meet in Dublin of a Saturday. He'd hitched a ride in with Sullivan, a schoolmate newly of age and flush with the possession of a moderately used Volvo. They'd spent the morning aimlessly wandering in and out of pubs, trying to find one showing some obscure football club's match, and he'd finally extracted himself in enough time to be in front of the Long Hall by three, hunched into the collar of his coat as the first few spits of rain drops turned into a full-fledged downpour.

He takes a careful sip of his Coke. "You could," he drawls, "just stick the damn thing back into me and let it do the job all proper-like. Save you all the bother."

The older woman's eyebrows lift over the rims of her glasses.

"I'm going to take that as a joke, Ronan. And I'm going to ask, I think, for the kindness of a proper answer."

"--I," he says, a little stupidly, and sags, resting his forehead against his hands. "Don't know quite how to say it."

He's quiet, for a long minute.

Then, a word in the Speech rolls from his lips, eleven syllables, the emptiness between galaxies, vast, cold, alone in the infinite darkness. Quiet, but for the hissing of background radiation and the last trembling echoes of the moment when the One spoke, and all matter roared into being.

"There's your fucking honesty," he snarls, and pushes himself out of the booth.

-

Shrieking seagulls circle somewhere overhead as the orange rind of a sunset dips further beneath the horizon.

He begins at a jog, loping along the road leading down into Bray, letting gravity quicken his stride-- _arms thrown up in challenge, infinity breaking loose, brightening into a tumult of laughter and wings_ \--

Gravel sprays with each footfall until he is racing, feet driving against the concrete, wind bellowing against his ears-- _and in the ferocity of Her advent no darkness survives_ \--

-

"Quite a night," comes a voice from somewhere behind him as he braces his hands on his knees, breathing hard.

"Oh bloody _hell_ ," he says, and turns to stare in mild horror at the Pig. "You."

"Points for originality," the Pig concedes. "But none for protocol. Or politeness."

"I--" He blows out through his nose. "Mind telling me the meaning of life?"

The Pig chuckles. "I was hoping, actually, that you'd have some advice there. Seeing as how you're-- something rather unexpected. I like that. Chocolates, you know."

"And that make me--"

"Coconut!" The Pig says cheerfully. "Best kind. No one wants them, and they're always left in the box when the marshmallow and the caramel are all sticky memories. But I digress. I seem to have been-- well, let's call it a mutual friend, rather, asked me to do you a bit of a favor." It held up a trotter. "And as a one-time exception, _I_ made an exception. So: to answer.

" _To strive onward and upward, always on the business of the One_. The One doesn't need pathos, or great works-- greatness of heart, that's all They really want. You can't calculate with zeros. Alfred Delp. Look it up."

"Did you-- is that _the_ answer--"

"No," and the Pig grins again. "But you make it so."

It winks, conspiratorially.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for tsukara in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge


End file.
